The chick starter had
Lysine: 1.35%
Methionine: 0.50%
Meatbird stuff had
Lysine: 0.8%
Methionine: 0.3%
I thought the idea was to lower their amounts at about 8 weeks, then lower it again around 14-16 weeks?
16 weeks old now. Pretty sure it's a drake.
All the ducks are getting along, although they have a tendency to break into their constituent mobs. The mix here seems to be the leader of the Rouens.
I was giving them a 24% protein chick starter, but recently they've been on meatbird crumbles (21% protein, but I don't know the rest off the top of my head).
There is an adult male in the mix, but who knows if he's shown an interest...
I let the pearls out today after about a month, and one of them had a limp. Of course it's the lone female. Later in the day, I came across her laying in the path, so I grabbed her up. Both her legs are damaged in...
I was surprised to get one, and they wanted to incubate it, so I did. When she laid another I was still surprised and figured I should put it in right away just in case the first hatched so it wouldn't be alone. It just kind of snowballed from there.
Candled them tonight and didn't see anything...
Haven't checked for fertility, I've just been putting them in as I get them. The oldest is about a week, maybe by now I could see something if I candle.
There's a really round one in there, and I saw an unshelled membrane in the coop a bit ago... but she seems to be getting the hang of it.
Got 4 little baby eggs incubating now. Seems like the girl is laying semi-regularly. Too small to bother eating or feeding to something else, so as long as she's popping them out I'll keep incubating.
Don't expect any to be viable, but it's not much hassle to add water once a day so why not...
Pearls will be 14 weeks tomorrow.
Today I saw this in their enclosure:
I've never seen a poultry egg so small.
Naturally, my gf and her sister want to incubate it. There's a roughly 0% chance anything can hatch from such a thing. But there's nothing in the incubators now so no harm humoring...
The Pearls kept venturing in the road, so they're on lockdown for now. Think that with just one adult around, the juveniles are setting the wandering itinerary - the adults never ventured off the property like that, except into the field.
The lavenders are going loose 2 or 3 at a time, but...
The 13 week old Pearls free range with the adult, the 8 week old Lavenders are only out of their enclosure a little bit, and only when I'm around. I've gotten overprotective...
About a week ago, one of the adults and 2 juveniles didn't show up to be put away. Tonight, another juvenile was a...
Lol, it's not so bad.
A barred rock decided to go broody in the Guinea coop, and hatched a chick in there. That's 5 weeks old now, and mama has had enough. She's gone back to roosting with the other chickens, but the chick keeps hanging around the Guinea coop. Tonight, the guineas were roosting...
Lavenders will be 8 weeks Monday, so I tried introductions...
The Pearls just want to chase them. Well, not chase like the mating season chase, where they dash around the yard like lunatics. Just short charges to make the lavs run away. For their part, it seems like the lavs are very much...
I was trying to introduce keets to my guineas around the same time I was trying to introduce chicks to the chickens.
The guineas immediately took to the keets and accepted them. The 8 week old Jersey Giants (4 of them) got a few pecks and chased, and the chickens didn't welcome them either.
I...
I use solar. They're supposed to be pathway lights, but I took them apart so I can have the panel outside the coop sucking up sun, and the light inside the coop. They generally like to go where there's light.
If I wait till dark, they'll roost on top of the coop. Then I have to pet / poke /...
There's a better shot of the younger Barred Rock x GLW chick. It's 3 weeks today, looking way more BR than the other crosses. But it does have the rose comb.
A few of the pearl grey keets were doing some sparring yesterday morning. They can be nasty. I couldn't tell if the one was grabbing the last few feathers on the other's head, or the budding casque. Then it looked like it was going for the wattles. A couple chickens came upon them and got all...
Night, caught him roosting. Got too close and he hissed, then stabbed his beak at me. Or he may have objected to me being so close to the keets - they were all pretty close together. Don't know why he's so bumpy there, or if that's normal...
Keets have nice eye coloring. Their heads are bluer...
Here's the little chickee, now 14 days old. I'd open the enclosure I have it in for a better pic, but when I do mama tries to get out and it follows right along.
Here's one of the other BR x GLW crosses, bit over 7 weeks old. Pretty green iridescence, and you can only see color on like 3...